The opening credits sequence of Brian Taylor’s Mom and Dad (which begins a weeklong run at Facets tonight) is meant to resemble something out of a 1970s exploitation movie, with split-screen effects, colored filters, and a Dusty Springfield ballad on the soundtrack. This homage is appropriate, as the film feels like an update of a couple superior exploitation movies of that decade, George A. Romero’s The Crazies (1973) and Russ Meyer’s Supervixens (1975). Mom and Dad recalls Crazies in its premise, which finds an American everytown infected by a plague that turns people into homicidal maniacs, and in its critique of the nuclear family, which it depicts as a locus of violence. Like Supervixens, the film is a fast-paced, violent cartoon with elements of broad satire. Taylor is about as subtle a director as Meyer was, but, as with Meyer, he displays a certain artistry in his quick cutting and manipulation of tone.
Blair grounds the film with her understated, self-effacing performance, while Cage is employed like a special effect. In one extended flashback, Cage lovingly assembles a pool table in his basement, mugging for the camera all the while, then demolishes it with a sledgehammer after Blair accuses him of spending too much money on it. (He sings “The Hokey Pokey” while smashing the table, which adds another element of forced weirdness.) Once the table’s been destroyed, Cage launches into a monologue about his disgust for his aging body and his inability to live up to the goals he set for himself as a young man. The sincerity of Cage’s delivery may be the weirdest part of this scene, if not the entire movie. It conveys a pathos that offsets the surrounding jokiness.
